Tim Ryan first made a name for himself in the Valley when the former congressional aide decided to run for the congressional seat in 2002 formerly held by the popular and controversial James Traficant.

Ryan through his hat into the ring and was elected as Ohio's 13th District congressman, winning with 51 percent of the vote.

Ryan went on and consistently won every two years, receiving as much as by 80 percent of the vote against Don Manning in 2006. However, due to reapportionment following the census in 2010, Ohio lost congressional seats due to a decline in the state's population, and eventually a loss of Tim Ryan's district.

In the November 2020 election, Ryan was showing potential signs of loss of his base voters, only winning with 53 percent of the vote against Republican Christina Hagan.

But the question is, was it Ryan that voters were going wary of, or did the Valley change?

Ryan's political run came to an end Tuesday, and the man who carried the Mahoning Valley for 10 terms, finally ran out of political steam.

Ryan received 46.7 percent of the vote in Ohio, and carried most of the large cities in the state, but lost the state by 264,675 votes, or 6.6 percent, including not carrying his home base of Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

Ryan lost in Mahoning County by 3.4 percent - receiving 40,827 votes to J.D. Vance's 43,753 votes.

In Trumbull County, the trend to vote more for Republican candidates started with Ryan's run against Christina Hagan in 2020, when he lost the county by 3.6 percent of the vote to Hagan, 49.44 percent, and Michael Fricke, 2.36 percent.

The margin that voted for the Republican candidate rose to 7.2 percent on Tuesday from Trumbull County.

In Columbiana, which was not part of his congressional district, Ryan lost on Tuesday by 39.8 percent of the vote, with 24,459 for Vance, and 10,520 for Ryan.

In 2020, 21 News political analyst Dr. Bill Binning said he felt believes Ryan's biggest hurdle in the near future could be re-districting.

After Ryan's loss, Binning told 21 News he attributes the rapid change for Trumbull and Mahoning counties from one of the most Democratic blue areas in the state to Republican red to Tim Ryan's predecessor, James Traficant, whose messaging and style was very similar to that of former President Donald Trump, who began the region switching political parties.

Binning said that the loss to Vance isn't about Ryan, but more attributable to the fact that the Valley jas realigned, in a very short period, from solid blue to a competitive red state.

And Binning added that the change will be here for a long time to come.